Chapter 830 - 418: Fifty Shades of Gray
After the taxi had left, Lawrence Winters stood under the cement lamp post by the street, taking a look at the famed Chinatown.
The architecture here gave a strange sensation of time travel.
It was like stepping back to the commercial streets of an inconspicuous county town in China during the 1980s.
Dusty cement ground, with empty mineral water bottles, milk cartons, and colorful plastic bags piled up in the grooves by the street.
The buildings on both sides of the street weren’t tall, still the local 19th-century three or four-story European-style buildings, their red brick facades exuding a sense of historical wear, summed up in one word, old.
All the ground floors of these buildings were shopfronts, displaying a variety of small goods, from baseball caps with "New York" written on them, to crudely made women’s lingerie, counterfeit branded bags, and restaurants with signs that read "Roast Meat."
Several street vendors were lined up, selling roast goose and scattered newsstands.
An elderly man, face full of wrinkles, sat on a small stool, his eyes cloudy, face displaying an entire acceptance, guarding his newsstand like it was his forever.
Lawrence Winters stood across the street at the small inn’s entrance, staring at the newsstand for a full five minutes without seeing a single person buying newspapers or magazines.
Which made sense; who buys newspapers and magazines in this modern network society?
If you want to catch up on news, there’s loads of it online for free, even if you don’t want to see it, it gets pushed to you, and you can’t turn it off.
Printed newspapers and magazines remain largely unwanted even when given away.
From the nearby shop, old Chinese songs could be heard.
The shop assistant listened intently, nodding and humming along.
Perhaps the people here love nostalgia, or maybe they’re from a paradise world; in any case, they live as if they were decades ago.
Looking up at the sky, Lawrence Winters wondered if it was just an illusion, but the sky didn’t seem blue, rather a dreary gray, maybe fifty shades...
She joked inwardly and with great effort, dragged two large suitcases to the entrance of the small inn by the street.
The style inside the inn matched the quaint decor of the streets, typical of several decades ago in China’s lesser-known county towns.
Many who ventured here to build their foundations probably had left during that era and seldom returned, so their memories are rooted decades back.
A middle-aged woman in her forties with a frizzy hairstyle sat behind the counter, impassively swatting flies with a fly swatter.
Lawrence Winters was startled by the sudden clapping sound as she entered.
Upon seeing someone swatting flies, she was utterly speechless.
She hadn’t seen flies in years back home, and here they were.
The question of being the world’s foremost superpower arises—why not wait for your people?
Lawrence Winters showed a faint hint of sarcasm in her eyes.
The woman, spotting someone entering, laid down the fly swatter leisurely, looked up, and asked, "What kind of room do you want? Double, triple, or a shared dormitory?"
She spoke at an extremely slow pace, pronouncing one character at a time, not in standard Mandarin but with a thick dialect accent.
Yet, because of her slowness, Lawrence Winters could still understand.
In fact, even if she spoke faster, Lawrence Winters would still comprehend.
Back then, while traveling with Nick Zeller, she learned local dialects wherever they went.
Even the incomprehensible gibberish she could make sound fluent.
Of course, she didn’t show it in front of the woman, instead putting on a dazed expression, stammering, "I... I... I booked a room... for one person."
As she spoke, she showed the woman her printed booking details.
The woman examined it carefully, then used her index fingers to type, one letter at a time on the keyboard, taking a full ten minutes to finally find Lawrence Winters’ booking information.
"You’re Noah? Booked a single room? With a window?" the woman asked slowly, checking the booking information.
Lawrence Winters had booked using her English name, Noah, phoneticized as Nova.
She nodded, "Yes, that’s right."
The woman then used her two fingers to tap her credit card information into the keyboard.
Lawrence Winters looked at the woman’s methodical demeanor and didn’t feel impatient, but rather amused.
This middle-aged woman’s attitude and expression were reminiscent of the sloths from the movie "Zootopia," sluggishly spending twenty minutes before handing over the room key.